Rappaport Institute Policy Briefs

Rappaport Institute Policy Briefs are short (four-to-eight page) non-technical essays in which leading scholars analyze key issues facing the region and discuss policy options for addressing those problems. Our hope is that policymakers and civic leaders in Greater Boston will find these pieces useful as they craft policies and programs to address important issues.

Below is a short abstract of the policy brief. To view the policy brief in pdf form, please click on the title of the brief. To receive this occasional email newsletter with the latest information on research findings, send an email to majordomo@ksglist.harvard.edu with "subscribe rappaport_policy_notes" in the body.

PB-2005-3 Standards-Based Education Reform in the Computer Age: Lessons from Boston's Murphy School
By Frank Levy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Richard J. Murnane, Harvard's Graduate School of Education

Like many states, Massachusetts is using standards-based education reforms to increase the number of students who master the problem-solving and communications skills they will need to trive in our increasingly computerized economy. This approach, which ties increased funding for shools to accountability for performance as measured by standardized tests, has produced dramatic results in many urban schools that serve low-income communities, such as Boston's Richard J. Murphy Elementary School. Achieving such gains, however, is not easy to accomplish. This policy brief is based on a chapter in Frank Levy and Richard Murnanes' book, "The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market."